[Ambassador Shapiro] praised Arava Power Company and its leaders as being great pioneers of solar energy, bringing renewable technology to the market in an affordable way and becoming a catalyst of change. "We consider Arava Power Company an American-Israeli product," he said. "I know that every day this field is working, generating real output."

While Haj Mousa Tarabin moves about with a smile seemingly glued to his face, he cannot help but feel slighted as he battles continuous impediments to establishing his 8-megawatt solar field. "I believe that there is nothing that will stand before desire, and I believe that there will be a project in the end," leader says.

The Israeli solar company said the transaction represents the largest of its kind to date in the country. The first deal, worth NIS 460 million (around 94.4 million euro; US$120.5 million) was closed with Noy Fund and financers Migdal Insurance Company, Bank Hapoalim and Amitim for five photovoltaic projects totaling 35 MW. Construction on the projects, to be located in the Negev Desert, is expected to begin "within a few months". Siemens Israel has been named as EPC contractor.

Arava Power's chief executive, Jon Cohen, said Tuesday the installations, to be built in the Negev desert, are "another step toward energy independence for Israel and a greener future for generations to come."

Israel's Arava Power said on Tuesday it secured 780 million shekels ($204 million) in funding to build eight medium-sized solar energy fields - the largest financial closing in the country's solar power industry.

Arava Power announced it had received a licence to build a 40MW plant near Eilat. That will take an investment of $US150 million and should be completed in 2014. Arava has led the fairly stunted growth of PV in Israel with the 5MW Ketura Sun project next door.

Photovoltaic activity in Israel is heating up: Arava Power Company has unveiled its US$150 million project plans; and Suntech discusses upcoming policy changes, which may result in higher photovoltaic quotas, and provides updates on its Israeli activities, including project pipelines and the market pullout of one of its modules.

Israel's Public Utility Authority has granted a license for the country's largest solar energy field to go online.The provisional license was granted Monday to the Arava Power Company for the field at Kibbutz Ketura, located about 16 miles north of Eilat.

Israel's Arava Power said on Tuesday it had received a provisional licence to build a large solar field in the Negev desert that will supply power to the Red Sea resort city of Eilat.Arava said the field, with an investment of $150 million, should be completed in 2014 and have a capacity of 40 megawatts - one third of the electricity consumption of Eilat during daylight hours.

Arava Power Company's application was approved last night by Israel's Public Utility Authority for their 40 MW, $150 million photovoltaic solar farm at Kibbutz Ketura, just north of the tourist destination city of Eilat in Israel's Arava Valley.

The majority of Israel's Bedouins live in the scorchingly hot Negev desert, and now they are starting to harness the power of the sun to make money. Israel's Public Utility Authority has just granted a license for the first Bedouin solar field, which will be built over the next year in the village of the Tarabin clan, in the north-west Negev.

The Bedouin population in Israel's South celebrated a historical green victory earlier this month after being granted a license for a photovoltaic installation adjacent to the Tarabin community in the Abu Basma Regional Council. This is the first license that has been awarded in Israel for a solar project involving the Bedouin community.

The first-ever license for a solar project has been awarded this week to Israel's bedouin community by Israel's Public Utility Authority. Yosef Abramowitz of Arava Power Company promoted and led the solar project, to make a solar energy dream come true for Bedouin living in the Israel's Negev desert.

The $30 million field will encompass 15 hectares (37 acres) and will be developed by Arava Power Company, the firm responsible for opening the country's first medium-sized solar field in Kibbutz Ketura in June. Arava Power signed a contract with the Tarabin family a year-and-a-half ago, and 80 percent of the money for the project is slated to come from OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation), an independent United States government agency.

The traditionally semi-nomadic communities residing in southern Israel's Negev desert have been the subject of disputes involving land, poverty and access for some time. A wave of initiatives to encourage villages to gain official recognition status, in order to profit from covering privately owned land with ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, is providing one method of aiding negotiations, despite the thorny social issues that come with them.

The Noy Infrastructure Fund, run by Pinchas Cohen, has signed an agreement to acquire 36% of a solar energy field at Kibbutz Ketura from Arava Power Company for NIS 15 million. The acquisition reflects a value of NIS 41 million for the solar energy station, which generates 5 megawatts.

The recent opening of Israel's first ground-mount solar energy plant was more like a gala awards ceremony than a standard ribbon-cutting event. The energy-starved nation says this highlights just how vital solar power infrastructure will become in the future of the Israeli energy mix.

CEO of Arava Power Company Jon Cohen advocated increased government support for the development of the solar industry, as "the sun cannot be sabotaged. It's the safest and most available energy source in Israel," Cohen said in a statement. "Energy security, energy independence and balancing the appropriate combination of energy sources are of critical economic importance to Israel's future."

On Kibbutz Ketura in the Negev desert there is a new and profitable crop: electricity. Engineers have just finished installing Israel's first major solar field on the kibbutz, which is a few miles north of Eilat and just as sunny. On a 20-acre site, 18,000 solar panels are ready to soon pump out 4.9 megawatts of electricity per hour during sunlight.

Last week, inaugurating Ketura Sun, Israel's first solar field, Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau praised the visionaries who spent five years making this miracle happen. "You are injecting new and renewable energy into Zionism," Landau proclaimed. These projects prove Zionism's enduring power. The story of Arava Power, which just planted 18,500 photovoltaic panels into 80 dunams to produce 9 million kilowatts annually, is a marvelous Zionist tale, making the Green Movement blue and white too.

The first major solar energy field in Israel is about to go live, a coup for sustainable energy and a challenge to traditional power sources. Not everyone in the establishment is rushing to join the party.

In a historic ceremony on Sunday night, one of Arava Power Company's founders David Rosenblatt saw his company and country's first photovoltaic field inaugurated.

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